2009 Sep 29 - Tue

VMWare Unity

In the latest release of VMWare Workstation, it has a new feature called Unity Mode. It is useable with Linux and Windows 2000 and later guest operating systems. Unity Mode happens when clicking a button in VMWare to "display applications directly on the host desktop".

The help file goes on to say:

The virtual machine console view is hidden, and you can minimize the Workstation window.

You can use keyboard shortcuts to copy, cut, and paste text between applications on your host machine and virtual machine applications displayed in Unity mode. You can also drag and drop and copy and paste files between host and guest.

The Ctrl+Shift+V key combination will pop up the virtual machine's Start or Applications Menu.

[/Personal/Technology] permanent link

Upgrade to KDE4: Black Screen, Obsidian Cursor

Today when upgrading my Debian Lenny/KDE to the latest version, I started having problems with KDE.

On my first upgrade, I did a simple 'apt-get update', 'apt-get upgrade' sequence. A bunch of packages were held back. The end result was that I could log in to KDE, and could see a desktop, but I had no menu interface.

Considering that there were a bunch of packages being help back, I did a 'apt-get update', 'apt-get dist-upgrade' sequence. Upon logging into the KDE shell, all I saw was a black screen and a shiny obsidian cursor.

It looks like the transition from KDE 3.5 to KDE 4.0 is not seamless in this Debian (Lenny) point release. However, that isn't quite correct. In my /etc/apt/sources.list file I do have entries for testing and experimental. So..., I may now be downloading testing or experimental releases.

In any case, the resolution to the problem appears to be to drop into the console and run one of these three commands: 'apt-get install kde-standard', 'apt-get install kde-minimal', or 'apt-get install kde-full'.

[/OpenSource/Debian] permanent link

2009 Sep 22 - Tue

Updating WebGUI

WebGUI's Update Page has links to the various updates.

Upgrade information can be found at Upgrading WebGUI.

To view the current upgrade history:

cd /data/WebGUI/sbin
perl upgrade.pl --history --doit
perl testEnvironment.pl

Stop Spectre:

cd /data/WebGUI/sbin
perl spectre.pl --shutdown

Make a backup of the files in /data/WebGUI/etc. The originals will be over-written, but the customized ones should be ok after the upgrade.

Decompress the new archive over the old files (with the current version as of this writing):

cd /data
wget http://update.webgui.org/7.x.x/webgui-7.7.20-stable.tar.gz
tar -zxvf  webgui-7.7.20-stable.tar.gz

Read the WebGUI/docs/gotcha.txt file.

Read the WebGUI/docs/changelog/7.x.x.txt to check out the latest changes.

Restart apache with '/etc/init.d/apache2 restart'.

Run the upgrade:

cd /data/WebGUI/sbin
perl upgrade.pl
perl upgrade.pl --doit --backupDir /data/bu/wg

Run testEnvironment.pl:

cd /data/WebGUI/sbin
perl testEnvironment.pl

Start Spectre:

cd /data/WebGUI/sbin
perl spectre.pl --daemon

Restart apache with '/etc/init.d/apache2 restart'.

[/OpenSource/Debian] permanent link

2009 Sep 15 - Tue

Search Engine Optimization

In my Sept 10 article regarding my experiences with the Elation DS 575E fixture, I used the phrase 'Elation Lighting Design Spot 575E' in many different places.

It took a day or two, but if you search for that phrase, you'll find it with a page rank of 2, only second to the Elation Lighting web site itself.

Search engine optimization is what they say it is. Embedding a series of keywords in an article multiple times does indeed help boost an article's popularity in Google's Page Rank. The problem is... finding the correct search terms.

The whole phrase got me that second spot, but if the words are re-arranged or some not used, then the ranking drops dramatically. If I had used various combinations, the Page Rank would probably come out quite different.... maybe lower, but high enough in a larger number of word search combinations.

[/Personal/Business] permanent link

Elation DS 575E Quality, Follow Up

The morning after I wrote my September 10 article regarding the Elation DS 575E Fixture, I heard back from the Service Department of Elation. Maybe it was coincidental, but I'd like to think that that blog article, in addition to messages I posted on Elation Lighting Forums, ControlBooth, and The Light Network helped in getting the ball rolling for servicing my Elation DS 575E fixture.

I'll be getting the parts I need to bring the Elation DS 575E back into spec, and Elation will be providing phone support to get me through the tough bits.

In my article, I did rant a bit about the Elation DS 575E service manual. I had been expecting something with some descriptions maintenance and service descriptions in them. In the end, with the break-out drawings and the parts lists, there is enough information to identify replacement parts for the Elation DS 575E. The instructions for replacement will be via phone. Replacing a tilt belt is going to be fun.

As I previously mentioned, I think the Elation DS 575E fixtures are great. It was getting the service arrangements straightened out was the tough part, mostly due to the fact that I'm two and a half hours and two customs departments from the nearest service center. I hadn't expected to have to service the Elation DS 575E lights so soon.

[/Personal/Lighting] permanent link

2009 Sep 10 - Thu

Elation Lighting Design Spot 575E Quality, or Lack Thereof

A few months ago, I purchased a couple of Design Spot 575E Moving Lights from Elation Lighting. After a bunch of research into feature sets and prices, these seemed to have the best bang for the buck. I purchased them through Bill Cronheim at Entertainment Systems. Bill had said they were reliable and free of worries and worked well.

When I received them, they appeared to work well. After I used them for a few hours, and got used to their capabilities, I realized that the two lights didn't match each other. One Design Spot 575E was having more problems than the other Design Spot 575E.

The first problem I noticed was that the focus motor wouldn't focus. After obtaining a copy of the service manual (what a joke that is), and some poking around, I re-adjusted the focus sensor, which is basically a magnetic sensor on a small circuit board. The sensor board doesn't appear to be long enough. After looking at the parts list, they have a B version of it. So perhaps there is a problem with it.

When using the Elation Lighting Design Spot 575E lights together during a focus session, I noticed the colour saturation on one was not as good as the other Design Spot 575E. Wouldn't you know it, the problem Design Spot 575E was the same as the one that had the sensor board problem.

I let Elation Lighting know about the problem.

I let it go for the time being and continued on with the show preparation. During a lamp check prior to a rehearsal, I noticed that the lamp would only point up at the ceiling. The belt appeared fine but lose. It tried to tighten the belt. There was no more ability to take up slack. Upon further observation, I found that the belt was splitting. As it happens, the broken belt was on that same Elation Lighting Design Spot 575E. Can you say LEMON?

I had the two Elation Lighting Design Spot 575E moving lights shipped out here to Bermuda. Do you know the customs and shipping expeneses I went through?

I offered Elation Lighting some token fee to pay for the LEMON Elation Lighting Design Spot 575E, made a request for replacement belts, CMY module, magnetic sensor board, requested a replacment NEW unit, and said I would buy another one in addition, because I think that they have some value.

It has now been several weeks now, and very little productive response from Gines Gines (Service Manager) and Eric Loader (Sales Manager) at Elation Lighting. I have tried to be friendly and open with them, but they don't seem to want to offer up any solutions.

I guess if I don't buy ten's or hundred's of lights from them, it doesn't matter much that I'm not happy with their after sales service or support. They can always try and sell lights to someone else.

Don't get me wrong, I love the fixture, but if they can't support it, well, I am no longer a supporter of Elation Lighting and their Elation Lighting Design Spot 575E Moving Head Fixture. I think what I received was not a new unit, as I expected, and had ordered, but a B stock demo unit. If they would just own up to that fact and get me my new replacement fixture, I'd be happy as a clam in wet sand.

[/Personal/Lighting] permanent link

2009 Sep 07 - Mon

Converting MIBS to OIDS

From a Cisco perspective, on the Cisco-NSP mailing list, Lee provided a simple method to convert between a MIB and an OID.

First obtain the oid files from Cisco's web site: ftp://ftp.cisco.com/pub/mibs/oid/oid.tar.gz. Expand the file and extract the included files. Then:

cat * | sort -k 2,2 -k 1 | uniq | nawk '{printf("%-50s  %s\n", $1,$2) }' > ../oids_all.txt

If you want to use it on Windows, use

unix2dos ../oids_all.txt

snmptranslate from net-snmp.sourceforge.net/ does a similar job.

One can also browse them at Cisco's OID Browser.

[/Networks] permanent link